Last season I rode with Silberpfeil 162 + Conshox. It was quite stiff combination and required quite lot of effort to ride properly, on the other hand it was very rewarding experience: when you put board really on edge and released it afterward, then it throws you up very well (when I started to practice push-pull technique, then during release my knees were constantly thrown against my chest
Swoard I tried first time in the beginning of January. I followed recommendations from this site and put bindings flat at minimum angle without overhang (47/53) with 48 cm stance (on Silberpfeil I had inner canting on both bindings and heel lift on rear binding). Such stance felt quite OK from beginning. In December I met another carver, who had also switched from Silberpfeil to Swoard and he said, that riding Swoard is completely different experience and he fell quite bad in his first descent. Remembering this I took my first rides with Swoard very carefully, more sideslipping than carving. First impressions were everything else but good: board felt quite damp and unresponsive in comparision with F2 due to softer flex and width. But when I started to try carving with Swoard, then picture changed: edge hold was exceptional! More than once my whole body said to me: you are way too inclined, now you'll lose an edge (and if I were on Silberpfeil, then it would have happened probably)! But Swoard just ignored my fears and kept going like on rails
And this damp feeling was actually board stability: after a while I was quite confident in board, it handled very well various conditions and went very smoothly. By the end of second day I could carve quite confidently already.My next trial of Swoard was in Aspen, during Carving Session, organized by Pureboarding. On the first day I had some falls due to nose diving into freshly fallen snow, but after moving my bindings back by 1 cm everything was OK. In Aspen I could try Swoard in diffent conditions (powder, 18'' in 2 days!, perfect corduroy and moguls). Swoard was good in every condition, only moguls provided difficulty (mostly by my complete lack of skills in moguls and board's length). I tried to (extreme) carve steeps in Aspen Ajax but wasn't able to ride them (lack of skills again, timing was wrong and I was too slow to initiate turn and gained too much speed). On the other hand Buttermilk was easy to carve and good place to gain confidence and learn Swoard better. Only thing which was negative, was some minor burn in outer part of legs (near top part of boots). It was quite different from problems with Silberpfeil, where I got shin bang on rear leg and could be accounted to different stance/binding angles.
My next riding was in Oppdal Carving Camp. It proved to be quite challenging, because slopes were demanding and all other riders were excellent ones and made me really push the limits. This resulted in quite big progress and major burn of legs (same problem as in Aspen). I guess that major problem in leg burn was the fact, that I was used to ride Silberpfeil with quite big weight shift forward during turn initiation and backward during turn progress (in order to bend this stiff board), but on Swoard with smaller binding angles such movement resulted in sideways pressure to legs instead of fore-aft movement of boot. I tried to cant boots' cuffs but it didn't work: after couple of turns bolts gave up and canting was even worse than before adjustment. Additionally this strong forward movement made riding more difficult on steeps as turns were carved with very small turning radius and forces increased considerably. Additionally nose diving happened more than once (and resulted in one quite spectacular over-the-nose crash). When I reduced this forward movement, my riding was smoother and nose overdriving disappeared.
In last weekend was Finnish carving day and there I had possibility to ride Swoard in excellent conditions. Previous year I rode in same slope and it felt quite challenging, now I could carve it from top to bottom quite confidently (until I got tired and started to make errors), so I can say, that I've somewhat improved during last year. Most of this improvement could be written to Swoard as this is the board, which gives confidence. Now my left hand's glove is wearing off even more than right hands one due to drag in snow
I tried Swoard also in race and although my time was ca. 25% worse than winner's and I was among last ones, I was quite happy with result: it was first time, when I could carve almost whole race course! Previous attempts were done mostly by sideslipping and although it resulted almost similar times, I was not happy about these races at all. To me riding style goes first (in this regard I agree completely with Manifesto), then performance (I'm not racer after all and can allow such an arrogance
On the other hand I know people (I won't name them, but one of them visits this forum under nickname Pokkis who can win races by carving with grace! So I have something to work on...OK, to end long story:
Positive about Swoard: excellent edge hold, great stability, lightweight, works well on different conditions, base is really fast. Its width allows really powerful force transmission to edge.
Negative: high cost (costed me an arm and leg
, fragile top sheet and nose/tail. Base seems to be uneven, it was hard to scrape wax off (but visit to shop can fix this easily). Board's specification is between bindings and if you put stomp-pad there, then it covers spex (better would be to put it to tail?). Makes my boss unhappy, as I'm daydreaming about riding Swoard again and again!